By ERNESTO
F. HERRERA
I
read about Senator Ralph Recto’s argument in justifying his version
of the sin tax bill. He doesn’t want to tax the tobacco industry to
extinction, Recto said, and besides, if the government raises the
taxes on tobacco and alcohol too much people will really stop smoking
and drinking, and then where will we get the promised revenues?
But
smoking and drinking (excessive drinking or alcoholism) are harmful
to one’s health, and isn’t the proposal to raise sin taxes really
intended to dissuade people from smoking and drinking less, or for
that matter quitting these habits altogether?
Aren’t
sin taxes meant to curb smoking and drinking in the first
place?
Our
country has the highest number of smokers among ASEAN countries. Over
a third of our 90-million population are smokers.
According
to the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, we also have one of the highest
percentages of young smokers among Asian countries. About 30 percent
of adolescents in the country’s urban areas smoke. Of these, more
than 70 percent started smoking between ages 13 and 15.
A
more recent survey conducted by the University of the Philippines
Communications Research Society (UP CommResSoc) in partnership with
HealthJustice showed that, indeed, our young people have become heavy
smokers.
The
survey on youth smokers, which was done in September in public
schools in Quezon City, revealed that 47 percent of high school
smokers were between 15 to 16 years old, 26 percent were 11 to 14
years old, and 23 percent are 17 to 18 years old.
A
World Health Organization study revealed that tobacco-related
illnesses kill 20,000 Filipinos a year and leave the government
poorer by about P46 billion in economic and medical costs.
Indeed,
due to its staggering negative impact on Philippine society, one
could consider cigarette and alcohol addictions as socially sinful
activities in the same manner that drug addiction and corruption
are.
Yes,
if people smoked and drank less as a result of the measure, perhaps
that would dampen increases in revenue, but the resulting health
benefits for the country would mean much more.
I
understand, for many Filipinos to grab a smoke and a drink is the
preferred way to take a break from work and from the stressful
routines of ordinary life.
I
myself am not a smoker or a drinker. Yet I don’t mind keeping
company with those who on certain occasions have fallen under the
influence of alcohol and nicotine. Indeed, my best friend, the late
Ka Blas Ople was both a smoker and a drinker (although he became a
teetotaler later on, many years before his death) and it’s amusing
how we were able to develop a fast friendship even as I shunned his
favorite vices.
The
buzz about members of Congress getting lobby money from cigarette
manufacturers is always strong whenever sin tax measures are being
debated in Congress. But I digress.
Let’s
face it, a more expensive pack of Marlboros is not going to convert
that many of our people to the path of the healthy and righteous. And
most beer drinkers would continue to chugalug even if SMBs are a few
pesos more.
But
the poorer members of our population who cannot afford the medical
costs of smoking and drinking related diseases are the ones who would
be discouraged more—or perhaps encouraged more to quit or at least
lessen their smoking and drinking.
Sin
taxes, or sumptuary taxes as they are sometimes called, are supposed
to discourage the use of products that are frowned upon by a lot if
not most in society. They are financial disincentives meant to turn
off people from engaging in activities that harm them and the rest of
society.
Sin
taxes are not just about raising revenue for a cash-depleted
government. It is not just a matter of where the government can make
the most money the quickest.
Yes,
the government needs the money. But it also can’t afford to stand
idle as its citizens die prematurely because of cigarette smoking.
Raising taxes has never been this morally and economically
defensible.
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